all you have to do is meme

[freckles_and_doubt]

Hooray, Friday! and, after a four-hour meeting yesterday (I exaggerate only slightly, it started at 12.00 and finished at 3.45pm) I have absolutely no brain at all and will quiver slightly and show the whites of my eyes if you mention the phrase "teaching and learning" in any context other than that of hearty cussing. Fortunately there are memes for that. Given the high concentration of maddened cooks and foodies in my immediate vicinity, I thought this one particularly appropriate - please adopt it if the mood takes you, in the comments or elsewhere. Also, food gadget pr0n! And, possibly, culinary one-upmanship, and/or fiercely chauvinistic gadget-hatred.

This is the Kitchen Cupboard Meme, wot I nicked off matociquala, in that way that seems a bit rude when it's an author-blogger you read but who doesn't know you from a bar of soap. Bold the gadgets you have and use at least once a year, italicize the ones you have and don't use, strike through the ones you had but got rid of. I have also underlined the ones I don't have and would like to own, and urge you to do likewise in the spirit of future birthday lists and general wishful thinking.

"I wonder how many pasta machines, breadmakers, juicers, blenders, deep fat fryers, egg boilers, melon ballers, sandwich makers, pastry brushes, cheese boards, cheese knives, electric woks, salad spinners, griddle pans, jam funnels, meat thermometers, filleting knives, egg poachers, cake stands, garlic crushers, martini glasses, tea strainers, bamboo steamers, pizza stones, coffee grinders, milk frothers, piping bags, banana stands, fluted pastry wheels, tagine dishes, conical strainers, rice cookers, steam cookers, pressure cookers, slow cookers, spaetzle makers, cookie presses, gravy strainers, double boilers, sukiyaki stoves, ice cream makers, fondue sets, healthy-grills, home smokers, tempura sets, tortilla presses, electric whisks, cherry stoners, sugar thermometers, food processors,bacon presses, bacon slicers, mouli mills, cake testers, pestle-and-mortars, and sets of kebab skewers languish dustily at the back of the nation's cupboards."

I add to this, in the spirit of joyous and highly specialised excess, mezzalunas, egg separators, nutmeg graters, egg timers, pizza slicers, cookbook holders, onion graters, fat separators, potato mashers and mandolins.

Caveat: I've counted the things in our kitchen rather than the things that I actually own: the fondue sets, kebab skewers and pizza stone are property of the Evil Landlord. Further caveat: I have interpreted "juicers" as the non-electrical variety, ymmv. I also record for posterity my unnatural fondness for a sort of mandolin thingy my mother used to own, which had a set of harp-like cheese-wire thingies in a row, and a depression you lowered them onto: it was for slicing eggs, and was probably categorisable as some sort of mandolin. She never used it, but I loved playing the wires like a harp.

Also, what the hell is a bacon press? Confused.